BY TED LEONARD AND ELENA TATE
BOSTON - "La Gaceta de Cuba strives to be a reflection of
the cultural debates in the country," explained Norberto
Codina, the editor of the Cuban magazine and a prize winning
poet. La Gaceta is a magazine of art and culture published by
the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. Codina has
been invited to speak at campuses in half a dozen U.S. cities
in the month of October. In Boston he addressed an audience of
100 people, most of them students, on October 6 at Tufts
University and another 50 people at Emerson College the
following night. He also spoke at the University of
Massachusetts.
In his presentation at Tufts University, Codina explained the development of Cuban culture since the 1959 revolution by tracing the various stages of La Gaceta over the same period.
The first years of La Gaceta, which began publishing in 1962, were its "romantic stage," he said, reflecting the early years of the revolution. In 1959, the struggle led by the Rebel Army and July 26 Movement overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and brought a workers and farmers government to power, which over the following years began charting a course toward socialism.
The 1970s saw a "change in the contents" of La Gaceta, Codina said. "There was a restraining of cultural debate. Culture was approached in a schematic way, like socialist realism." During that period, many of the economic planning and management policies of the Stalinist bureaucratic caste in the Soviet Union were copied in Cuba, with negative social and political consequences. In the '70s, La Gaceta became known for being "heavy and dense," Codina said.
In the 1980s, as a new generation began to reject this course, the magazine turned into its opposite. "It was the magazine of writers and artists," he said, "but you only saw actors and actresses who were in vogue on the cover. It became known for being `light.'
"Towards the end of the 1980s the editors decided to reclaim the magazine's original goals and sought the participation of youth to do so." In 1990, however, when economic trade with the Soviet Union disappeared practically overnight, Cuba faced a severe economic crisis, which became known as the Special Period. La Gaceta stopped publication for two years, due to the lack of paper and other resources.
Inventing solutions to economic crisis
At Emerson College, in response to a question about the
effects of the Special Period on culture in Cuba, Codina said
that economic limitations on the visual arts had been very
severe. "The greatest impact has been on film, which is a
luxury industry, as far as Third World countries are
concerned. Cuban painters had to invent solutions to cope with
the shortages - they would manufacture their own brushes and
create their own paints."
Today, through contributions and subscription sales, La Gaceta is nearly self-sufficient. And, as Codina put it, the magazine "attempts to put oxygen into the Cuban cultural climate."
"What is your aim in the distribution of your magazine in the United States?" Codina was asked. "Our objectives are several," he replied. "We want to disseminate the cultural production inside the country.... Our intentions are to build bridges - between the United States and Cuba and with the Cuban community in the U.S. and Cuba."
A student at Emerson College asked, "What aspects of the revolution do you love, and are proud of, and how has it helped artists?"
"I'm most proud of the movement to establish schools of art in Cuba. They make it possible for artists to be only 25 years old and be a full-time professional," Codina said. "As for the revolution in general, I am most proud that Cuba has been able to maintain its independence of the United States," he added. The audience responded with applause.
In response to a question about the content of the cultural debate the in the pages of the magazine, Codina described the controversy around a number of plays in the 1997 National Theater Festival. Several plays were "sharply criticized by Cuban publications, which devised theories of what was correct or not correct in political presentations." La Gaceta solicited varying points of view and printed the debate. That issue "sold out immediately."
A second example occurred last year. At the time the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine-born leader of the Cuban revolution who was murdered in Bolivia in 1967 by the Bolivian army in collaboration with Washington, were returned to Cuba along with those of several of his Cuban, Bolivian, and Peruvian comrades. A young filmmaker released a movie that metaphorically dealt with the necessity and manipulation of myths. It included images of Jesus Christ, John Lennon, John F. Kennedy, and Che Guevara. The film was harshly criticized in Cuba for its treatment of Guevara. The picture was also criticized in La Gaceta, but for its artistic merit, not content. Codina declared that Cuban society needs a "culture of criticism and debate."
New Gaceta on Blacks in Cuban culture
Codina said that a new issue of the bimonthly magazine was
about to come out. It covers many aspects of popular culture,
especially "the participation and valuable contribution of
Blacks in Cuban culture."
He explained that the revolution improved the conditions of life for Blacks in Cuba. "All the laws favor Blacks. A Cuban may acknowledge that he is machista, but he would never acknowledge in public that he was a racist. But, racist prejudices still exist." An example he pointed to is the small number of Blacks in Cuban TV shows.
The event at Tufts University, which was part of Hispanic Heritage Month, was sponsored by the Hispanic Center, the Romance Languages Department, and the Latin American Studies Program. Three people attending the meeting decided to subscribe to La Gaceta de Cuba.
The Honors Program at Emerson College and Amigos, a Latino student group, sponsored the program at that campus. Napoleon Henderson-Jones, an artist who operates an Afro-American art museum that Codina visited, also participated in the meeting.
Ted Leonard is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. Elena Tate is a member of the Young Socialists.